Author: Chatinian Lara

The Times (London)
October 7, 2004, Thursday

How Iraq used its oil to buy favours from UN

by James Bone in New York

SADDAM HUSSEIN used the UN Oil-for-Food programme to subvert UN
sanctions by buying influence with UN officials and Security Council
members, the US Government alleged last night.

A report by the chief US weapons inspector in Iraq named Benon Sevan,
the head of the UN programme, and key officials in Security Council
member states as having benefited from Iraqi oil sales.

George Galloway, the British MP, also figured on the list shown to
reporters in London. But his name was apparently edited out of the
copy released on the CIA website.

The report was based on 13 secret lists of oil allocations kept by
Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Amir Rashid, the Oil
Minister.

The lists included alleged allocations to the Russian presidential
office, the Russian Foreign Ministry, the son of Russia’s
then-ambassador to Baghdad as well as members of the Dumas and
several political parties, including the Communists, Russia’s Unity
Party and the country’s Liberal Democratic Party.

France’s former Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua, and a “Jan
Mirami”, believed to be former UN Ambassador, Jean-Bernard Merimee,
were also named, as was the Iraqi-French Friendship Society.

The former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri , the son of
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, the Yugoslav Radical Party, the
Spanish Public Party, the People’s Liberation Front of Palestine and
the anti-Iranian Mujahideen Khalq also figured on the list.

“Saddam personally approved and removed all names of voucher
recipients”, the report said. “He made all modifications to the list,
adding or deleting names at will.”

The Oil-for-Food programme has come under intense scrutiny since the
Baghdad newspaper Al-Mada published a list in January of companies
and individuals – including Mr Sevan -who allegedly received vouchers
conferring the right to lift specific amounts of Iraqi crude.

The programme allowed Iraq, which was placed under a comprehensive UN
trade embargo after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, to sell limited
amounts of oil and to use the proceeds to buy humanitarian supplies
abroad.

But Saddam was allegedly able to exploit a loophole in the system to
pay off allies and sympathisers around the world.

Because he decided who could buy Iraqi crude, Saddam could award the
right to purchase specific amounts of oil to his friends. Those
companies and individuals could then sell on those rights to oil
traders for a profit. The oil traders would then arrange to pick up,
or “lift”, the oil from Iraq and sell it on the world market.

According to a preliminary copy seen by The Times, the US Government
report describes the Oil-for-Food scheme as a burgeoning source of
real disposable income for Saddam, with ample scope for corruption.
It says lucrative allocations were made to UN officials and to Iraq’s
supporters around the world, including key figures in Security
Council members Russia, France and Syria.

The pay-offs meant that some Security Council members were actually
violating UN sanctions passed by the council itself, the report
claims.

Russia and Syria in particular were vocal defenders of Iraq on the UN
sanctions committee at a time when they had a financial stake in
closing loopholes in the system.

A senior US official said Saddam had used his control over the
distribution of Iraqi oil as an “important tool” to seek “leverage”
on the world stage in a bid to win the lifting of sanctions. “Iraq
used that process of allocating the rights to lift oil to suit its
national interests,” he said.

The official added that companies and individuals named on the US
list were an indication of whom Iraq was “seeking to influence, whom
they thought they were influencing”. But he cautioned that those
named should not necessarily be seen as having been “bribed.”

“This is a list of people who Iraq chose to give oil allocation to.
The circumstances of propriety or impropriety of that, well, you’ve
got to look at the recipient,” the official said.

The scandal is now being investigated by at least five US
congressional committees as well as the Iraqi interim Government and
a UN inquiry headed by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US
Federal Reserve. Criminal investigations into alleged sanctions
busting are also under way in the United States.

Mr Sevan, a Cypriot of Armenian descent who ran the programme from
1997 until it was closed down, reiterated his innocence yesterday in
the face of renewed allegations that he had profited from the scheme.

Kuqi leads Finland with two goals in 3-1 win over Armenia

AP Worldstream
Oct 09, 2004

Striker Shefki Kuqi scored twice to lead Finland past Group 1 outsider
Armenia 3-1 in World Cup qualifying Saturday.

Russian-born forward Aleksei Eremenko also scored for Finland, notching his
fifth goal in four qualifiers.

Finland lost its Group 1 opener to Romania, but has since then won three
straight games to share the lead in the group with the Romanians.

Eremenko set up Kuqi, who scored just eight minutes into the game before a
crowd of 7,894. Eremenko curled a free kick past goalkeeper Armen Ambartsumian
in the 28th to make it 2-0.

Armenia, which lost 2-0 at home to the Finns a month ago, pulled one back
four minutes later through Armen Sjahgeldian’s free kick goal. His shot was
deflected off Sami Hyypia and left Finnish keeper Antti Niemo without a chance.

Kuqi struck again in the 87th minute for his second goal.

Finland now travels to the Netherlands to play the group favorite on
Wednesday.

___

Lineups:

Finland: Antti Niemi; Petri Pasanen, Toni Kuivasto (Teemu Tainio, 46), Sami
Hyypia, Janne Saarinen (Toni Kallio, 69); Mika Nurmela, Aki Riihilahti, Mika
Vayrynen, Joonas Kolkka (Jonathan Johansson, 83); Alexei Eremenko, Shefki Kuqi.

Armenia: Armen Ambartsumian; Rafael Nazarian, Karen Dohojan, Sargis
Hovsepian, Harutjun Vardanian, Alexander Tateosian; Hamlet Mkhitarian, Romik
Hatsjatrian (Karen Alexajan, 36), Armen Sjahgeldian, Davit Grigorian (Edgar Manucharjan,
61); Andrej Movsesian (Ara Hakobian, 84).

The Messenger
Oct 7, 2004

District head arrested for malfeasance
The gamgebeli of Ninotsminda in the Samtakhe-Javakheti region was arrested
on September 6 for abuse of his official duties. The main reason of the
arrest was the illegal building of a Ninotsminda electric transmission line
and also the illegal use of land in the region by the gamgebeli, Rafic
Arzumanian.
According to law enforcement, Arzumanian had two first vice-deputies, both
of whom had the same powers, which is a violation of the law.
Arzumanian’s lawyer Otar Kachkachishvili rejected the charges saying “he did
not make the decisions by himself and there was no violation of state
interests. He denies any connection to this.”

Armenian leader, Bulgarian envoy discuss expanding ties

Noyan Tapan news agency
4 Oct 04

Yerevan

The new Bulgarian ambassador to Armenia, Stefan Dimitrov, handed his
credentials to Armenian President Robert Kocharyan on 4 October.

[Passage omitted: Kocharyan congratulated the ambassador on his
appointment]

Robert Kocharyan said that Armenia is interested in developing
relations with Bulgaria and is ready to deepen the political dialogue
between the two countries and speed up bilateral relations in all
spheres. He said that the Armenian president’s official visit to
Bulgaria a year ago and the Bulgarian president’s official visit to
Armenia on 5 October testify to the two countries’ desire to expand
cooperation.

The Armenian president and the ambassador also touched on bilateral
economic ties and pointed out with satisfaction that trade between the
two countries has been increasing over the last few months. They noted
the special role of transport infrastructures as a priority sphere of
cooperation.

[Passage omitted: Dimitrov met Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan]

The ‘hordes’ linger in Europe’s memory: Turkey’s EU membership
By Nicolas Cheviron

AFP
2 Oct 04

ISTANBUL: When Europe first saw the Turks nearly 1,000 years ago,
Byzantine historians believed they had met “the hordes of the
Apocalypse”; ten centuries later, Europe’s collective memory is still
marked by prejudice against this nation now knocking at the EU’s door.

To this earliest recollection of the Turks’ parentage with the
terrible Huns who ravaged Europe half a millennium earlier,
traditional European history has added the more recent memory of the
threat they posed to Christian Europe after their conversion to Islam
in the 10th century.

The arrival of the “scourge of Christianity” on Mediterranean shores
in the 11th century led to a series of wars between Christian princes
and the Seljuk Dynasty, from whose ashes the Ottomans emerged in the
early 1300s.

Modern European schoolbooks still retain bitter memories of these
conflicts, from the 1071 defeat of the Byzantines at Manzikert –
modern Malazgirt, in eastern Turkey – to the fall of Constantinople –
now Istanbul – in 1453 and the failed sieges of Vienna in 1529 and
1683. But Ottoman domination of the Balkans and the Mediterranean did
not last forever and from the late 17th century on, Europe stopped
seeing the empire as a threat and began eying it as possible prey,
particularly from the 19th century on, when it was famously called
“The Sick Man of Europe.”

As the once mighty and opulent Ottoman Empire declined and the Age of
Enlightenment spread across Europe, the image of the Turk merged with
that of Islam as a civilization impossible to modernize and despotic
by nature.

Thus, Europe tended to sneer at all attempts by the Turks to
westernize – from Selim III, strangled in the seraglio in 1808 for his
efforts, to the Young Turks movement of 1908 and Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk’s proclamation of the modern Turkish Republic in 1923 – as
cosmetic measures failing to attack the root problems of a backward
culture.

Many 20th century researchers, however, have explained that prejudices
against the Turks were not as widespread as contemporary chroniclers
would have us believe. As early as 1536, Francis I, King of France,
did not hesitate to form an alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman
the Magnificent against what he saw as a far greater enemy: the Holy
Roman Empire of the House of Habsburg.

“With the exception of some localized areas of contact… Westerners
at the start of the Modern Age never really feared the Muslim
(Turkish) threat,” wrote French historian Jean Delumeau in his book,
Fear in The West.

Until the beginning of the 16th century, Delumeau wrote, large numbers
of Christians, mostly peasants, fled to Ottoman provinces to escape
Europe’s harsh feudal system.

“Of the 48 Grand Viziers (the Ottoman equivalent of prime minister)
who ruled from 1453 to 1623,” he wrote, “at least 33 were renegades” –
Christians who converted to Islam to serve the Sultan.

Thierry Hentsch, author of the book “The Imaginary Orient”, claims
that the negative image of the Turk was simply a sort of instrument
the Europeans devised to better define their own selves.

“The West showed interest (in the Turks and their culture) without
realizing that they were really interested in themselves,” he
wrote. “They represented it to better identify themselves, they
denigrated it to reassure – or to frighten – themselves, and they
dreamed of it to escape.”

One historic problem remains, however, that casts a pall on latter-day
relations: the massacre by Ottoman troops in 1915 of hundreds of
thousands of Armenians, which much of Europe considers genocide, a
term the Turkish authorities reject. -AFP

Georgia, Armenia concerned about Russian border closure

Rustavi-2 TV, Tbilisi
30 Sep 04

[Presenter] The situation at the Lars checkpoint [on the
Russian-Georgian border] was discussed at the constituent meeting of
the Georgian-Armenian business association, which was held today at
the Courtyard Marriott [hotel in Tbilisi].

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and the
president’s wife Sandra Roelofs.

Member of parliament Beso Jugheli will be the Georgian co-chairman
of the association.

The event was also attended by business people and members of
parliament from Armenia.

Georgians and Armenians both complained about Russia’s decision to
close the Lars checkpoint, which has created problems for ordinary
people and businesses alike. Armenian businessmen asked the Georgian
prime minister to deal with this problem but Zurab Zhvania reminded
them that he was not Russia’s prime minister.

[Armenian businessman, no caption, addressing Zhvania in Russian]
I have 510 vehicles waiting at Nizhniy Lars, 510 vehicles waiting
for 15 days now. Will this border ever reopen?

[Zhvania] If you had Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov standing in front
of you, it would probably be worth asking him this question. There
is full readiness on the part of Georgia for the border to open
completely and operate properly.

You have mentioned vehicles, so I must tell you that late last night
I received a telephone call from the Armenian ambassador, who told me
that women and children there literally had to stay in the field. I
must also say that, after I informed him about our conversation with
the ambassador, President Saakashvili, in contravention of all border,
customs and other regulations, took the decision to ensure free passage
for them. This problem is gradually becoming very serious indeed. I
hope that your vehicles are safe and will reach their destination.

CHINESE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTS – SEPT 28, 2004

Asia Pulse
Sep 28, 2004

BEIJING, Sept 28 Asia Pulse – Highlights of today’s newspapers:

PEOPLE’S DAILY:

– Chinese President Hu Jintao said in Beijing Monday that China is
ready to make joint efforts with Armenia to raise bilateral relations
to a new level. He made the remark in talks with visiting Armenian
President Robert Sedrakovich Kocharyan, who is on his first state
visit to China as president.

– Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said that the people of northwest China’s
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region should devote themselves to building
a new type of relations between different ethnic groups during his
visit in the region on Monday. “The various ethnic groups in the region
should get together and develop a new type of socialist relationship
of an equal, friendly and mutually beneficial nature,” said Wen, who
returned Saturday after concluding his visit to Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

CHINA YOUTH DAILY:

– China successfully launched its 20th recoverable satellite for
scientific and technological experiments from the Jiuquan Satellite
Launch Center, in northwestern China’s deserts, at 16:00 Monday.

ECONOMIC DAILY:

– Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said that the people of northwest China’s
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region should devote themselves to building
a new type of relations between different ethnic groups during his
visit in the region on Monday. “The various ethnic groups in the region
should get together and develop a new type of socialist relationship
of an equal, friendly and mutually beneficial nature,” said Wen, who
returned Saturday after concluding his visit to Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

– A grand reception was held Monday at the Great Hall of the People for
foreign experts working in China, on the eve of the 55th anniversary of
the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Vice Premier
Huang Ju delivered a speech at the reception. He said that since
the founding of the PRC, and especially since China instituted the
reform and opening-up policy, China has made great achievement. The
annual economic growth rate has averaged 9.4% over the past 25 years,
he said, adding that the living standard of the Chinese has continued
to improve.

CHINA DAILY:

– With a bumper harvest in sight for this year, China is sowing the
seeds for a fruitful 2005, planning its acreage of wheat – the nation’s
second most important crop after rice – by 666,600 hectares. The
added area is expected to increase China’s wheat production by at
least 3.5 million tons, said Xiaobing, an official with the Ministry
of Agriculture.

GUANGMING DAILY:

– Chinese President Hu Jintao said in Beijing Monday that China is
ready to make joint efforts with Armenia to raise bilateral relations
to a new level. He made the remark in talks with visiting Armenian
President Robert Sedrakovich Kocharyan, who is on his first state
visit to China as president.

– China successfully launched its 20th recoverable satellite for
scientific and technological experiments from the Jiuquan Satellite
Launch Center, in northwestern China’s deserts, at 16:00 Monday.

ECONOMIC INFORMATION DAILY:

– China’s township businesses have reported a total of 2,744.7
billion yuan (US$332.3 billion) of added value in January-to-August
this year, up 12.82% on a yearly basis. According to figures released
by the Township Enterprise Bureau under the Ministry of Agriculture,
main indicators such as industrial added value, operational income,
export value of products for delivery, benefit and taxation have all
shown a coordinated and stable upward trend.

CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL:

– The additional stock issue scheme of Shanghai-listed Baoshan Steel
(600019) was adopted at its general meeting of shareholders on
September 27.

– The central bank’s monetary policy committee suggests appropriate
regulation over fluidity in the financial system.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
September 26, 2004 Sunday 11:10 AM Eastern Time

Armenian president comes to Beijing on five-day state visit

By Alexander Zyuzin

BEIJING

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan arrived in Beijing on Sunday on a
five-day state visit, Xinhua reports.

He will meet with Chinese Chairman Hu Jintao, State Council Premier
Wen Jiabao and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National
People’s Congress Wu Bangguo to discuss political, trade, economic
and cultural relations.

The negotiations will result in signing of a joint declaration and
several agreements to boost economic, technical and cultural
cooperation.

The Armenian delegation will visit Shanghai on September 29 to
familiarize themselves with Chinese reforms.

Film: Vodka Lemon (PG) Hiner Saleem ii888

The Independent – United Kingdom
Sep 24, 2004

Reviewed by Robert Hanks

An Armenian-French production from the “Isn’t life a terrible thing”
school, set in a remote, snowbound Kurdish village, where the collapse
of Communism has left much of the population without jobs or money,
and the main pastimes are visiting the graves of loved ones and
drinking something called “vodka lemon”. Hamo (Romen Avinian), an
elderly widower, begins a gentle courtship of Nina (Lala Sarkissian),
a widow, whom he meets every day on the bus; but these vestiges of a
plot are crowded out by would-be bittersweet, whimsical tableaux of
local eccentricities and fortitude in the face of despair – an elderly
man is towed through the snow on his steel bed; a man on horseback
gallops through the picture every 10 minutes or so; and, at the end,
Hamo and Nina sit at her piano, playing a tune as the instrument rolls
down the road. Lovely mountain scenery, but that doesn’t make up for
the self-indulgence.

Marco Island Eagle, FL
Sept 22 2004

MICMS students compete in Olympic Day
By MARCI ELLIOTT, Staff Writer
September 22, 2004

It was a day for champions.

The academic kind.

Seventh-graders at Marco Island Charter Middle School left their
regular classes Sept. 15 to take part in Olympic Day, an annual event
organized by teachers to help students develop an affinity for
learning through fun.

The event’s awards were styled after the Olympic Games, with gold,
silver and bronze medals presented to the top three teams. In the
MICMS version, the “medals” were made of spray-painted compact discs
that dangled from yellow ribbons around the winners’ necks.

The seventh-grade class, mostly 12-year-olds, was divided into 26
teams of five students each, with each team naming itself after a
country. Team members got to design their own flags, and many sported
their country’s name on their arms and legs or face.

The students performed dances, held relays, worked problems on the
metric system and took part in other activities in the morning. At 11
a.m., they had lunch and munched on popcorn as they watched Miracle,
the 2004 movie about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team.

The best part of the day, students said, was when they gathered on
the pavilion that afternoon and the winning teams were announced by
science teacher Shane Totten.

The gold medal went to Armenia, silver to Greece and bronze to
Norway. The champions roared with glee as their classmates cheered
and applauded.

“We really worked hard,” said Tabitha “Taby” Crotts, a member of Team
Armenia.

“We couldn’t have won if we didn’t all help each other.”

Conor Watt said being on Team Armenia meant a lot to him.

“It’s good to represent your own (ancestral) country,” he said. “My
great-grandmother knew what it was like to live there. She fled with
her family when the Turks invaded.”

Some students said their favorite parts of Olympic Day were the
“cotton ball” relay with math teacher Debbie Waldinger and wearing
dress- up costumes with social studies teacher Lori Galiana.

Beata Logan of Team Norway said the event was a lot of fun,
especially the social studies activities.

“It takes a lot of teamwork,” she said.

MICMS Seventh Grade Olympic Day

Gold – Armenia: Conor Watt, Danny Fleming, Chad Severn, Taby Crotts,
Anthony Funk

Silver – Greece: Danin Greusel, Ashley Wierback, Jake Pappas, Dan
Lopez, Nikki Popoff

Bronze – Norway: Nick Thorstenson, Kailey Knudson, Kevin Blaiweiss,
Nick Kalmanek, Beata Logan